


Crossed lives - The Oath

by Anyathethief



Series: Crossed lives [2]
Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-20
Updated: 2016-10-08
Packaged: 2018-08-10 00:16:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7822846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anyathethief/pseuds/Anyathethief
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Don’t go.” she murmured in a low voice. It wasn’t like her, she’d never been a woman like that, but the idea of being alone again, with the baby about to be born, had sunk her in a deep, dark tunnel from where she couldn’t see a way out if not staying with D’Artagnan forever and not having to be apart again. </p><p>---------------------------------</p><p>He handed it to her, to put it around her neck. Beatrice looked at him surprised. She knew that in that neckerchief there were all his memories, the camps he had attended, dummies and pins that people had given to him in the years… Some of them he’d lost, others were pretty old, others she had pinned herself on it. She smiled. She was glad she didn’t have to give up the Cubs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The neckerchief

“Tommy… Come on, wake up…!”  
The boy moaned rolling in his bed, annoyed.  
Beatrice looked around to check that no one else had woken up. Leonardo’s snoring in the back of the room was echoing even in the girl’s dorm. She twitched her nose, bitter, then she went back shaking her friend.  
“Tommaso!” she hissed in a slightly louder voice. She couldn’t stay there much longer, if the leaders caught her… Plus, it was freezing: in her warm sleeping bag she didn’t regret she had brought only her shirtsleeves pyjama, but as soon as she’d got up from bed, she immediately realised her mistake. She had pulled her striped socks up to her knees and on her tiptoes she went out from the big bedroom full of bunk beds: nobody noticed her.  
On the other side of the large hall where the dorms leaded to, there was the leaders and the cooks’ bedrooms: the lights were off and she couldn’t hear any more their loud laughing from downstairs. All clear! But now her plan was failing because of that lazybones!  
Beatrice looked around again, then she strongly stuck her hand into his wrist. Tommaso winced, he opened his eyes wide and he saw her, with her long brown hair up in a messy ponytail and her scowl wrinkling her lips.  
“Be--” he was about to exclaim, before she firmly shut his mouth.  
“Shut up, do you want everyone to wake up?!” she whispered, annoyed. They waited a few seconds in silence. Leonardo kept snoring like a tractor and both of them wondered how everyone could sleep with that noise. Giovanni mumbled in his sleep.  
“Come on, let’s go!” she pushed him. Tommaso didn’t seem to feel like going out of his sleeping bag: he hesitated for a while, but when he saw her persistent gaze, he didn’t dare to reply.  
When his feet touched the floor, he had a chill all through his back and the temptation of going back to bed was great, but then Beatrice held his hand and all of his doubts vanished.  
She knew how to be bossy but then, once she touched him, he melted. She turned and a wave of shampoo’s smell pervaded his nose. He followed her without replying, as he was under the control of her spell.  
When they went out in the hall, he felt more confident in speaking without being reproached again.  
“Where are we going? I’m...” he wanted to say he was tired, a lot, but he avoided to make her mad.  
“I found something!” Beatrice cut out, going towards the stairs. Tommaso stopped before the first step and as she was dragging him, she had to do the same.  
“We can’t go upstairs! If they catch us...”  
“Oh, come on! Why do you always have to be such a coward? They won’t catch us! Come on, move!”  
Beatrice turned her back to him. She knew he would have followed he, he would have never stayed there, or went back leaving her alone. In fact, a few seconds after, she heard his steps behind her and she turned to him with a smirk.  
She always got him to do whatever she wanted. Sometimes she had wondered about the decency of this, but she came to the conclusion that she always rewarded him in some way, so he didn’t have to complain!  
They walked through the dark refectory, lightened just by the weak reflection of a street lamp, then Beatrice went close to the kitchen’s doors.  
“You can wait here, if you’re scared.” she said confidently, while he’d stopped again, terrified.  
“You know this is so forbidden, why are you doing this?” he asked. He was pale. The cooks could be so cruel with the ones who didn’t respect the rules. Once they had him wash all the dishes by himself! It was always because of one of Bea’s stupid ideas: she convinced him to steal some extra cake to share…  
Beatrice didn’t answer and she disappeared behind the kitchen’s double doors. Tommaso winced and popped out his eyes. She was actually doing it! He looked around. What could he do? He didn’t want to go in there, they would have put themselves in trouble and it was just the first day at the camp, they would have ruined their whole vacation because of that thing!  
“Bea!” he whispered. He thought he heard a noise upstairs. What if someone arrived? His eyes jumped from one side of the room to another, looking for a hiding place, but he knew he couldn’t leave her alone!  
When he decided to go in, Beatrice suddenly opened the door, almost smashing it on his nose. He was too short for his twelve years and she couldn’t see him from the door’s window, too high for her too.  
“Look at this!” she exclaimed, showing him a bag full of chocolate and candies.  
“Oh...” he said, entranced. He loved sweets and Bea knew it. She had done that more for him than for herself. “Oh!” he exclaimed then, in a pretty different tone. “We’ll be in trouble, the cooks hate even when we just talk about their food!!” he scolded her, trying to enhance his image. But he only managed to make her laugh. She was a little taller than him and she always looked down at him.  
“Come on, take just a few, they won’t even notice!” she replied giggling and she started searching the bag, picking up three, four, five of her favourite candies. Tommaso sighed. Then he put his hand in the sweets, pretending not to be excited, while he was already salivating.  
The light that suddenly turned on caught them with their hands in the cookie jar, literally. 

 

“Mmmhh… It’s the tastiest cake I’ve ever had!!”  
Leonardo enjoyed his slice of cake enhancing every move and expression, while Tommaso looked at him out of rage from his corner on the bench: the empty mess kit in front of him reminded him why he shouldn’t never listened to Beatrice’s ideas.  
“Don’t listen to him.” she said out loud, so that Leo could hear. “It’s not that tasty. I saw Mysa* smoothing her nails over the dough.” she added. It was a bald-faced lie and Tommaso knew because she’d raised her eyebrows in that way… Like she always did when she lied. Under the table she reached out for his hand, but he avoided her, still mad.  
“Hey, it wasn’t my fault!” she whispered, while with the corner of her eye she could see Leonardo hesitating on his slice of cake. “You made too much noise!” she blamed.  
But Tommaso didn’t want to hear. Mysa’s cake was his favourite, and now because of Bea he couldn’t have it and that was the only day he could have eaten it! The next year then, they wouldn’t be Cubs any more and Mysa wouldn’t be with there any more, so it was his last chance to have that cake and Bea had spoilt everything for some chocolate that they could have eaten at any time… Tears filled his eyes.  
He looked at Akela hoping to inspire him pity. He had always been the kindest with them, but he didn’t catch his glance. And then, since when they had entered in the A.C. **, he’d started considering them older and more responsible and Tommaso knew that they were now disappointed about their behaving: he read it in Bagheera’s eyes.  
Beatrice looked at him astonished. Was he really upset for something stupid like that?  
“Tommy” she called him, again trying to reach is hand, but once again he moved his hand away sharply.  
“Leave me alone!” he burst. “It’s all your fault, I didn’t want to come, okay?” he wasn’t looking at her, but he knew he got that, because Bea wouldn’t speak any more until everyone stood up to do their chores.  
“Bea, Tommy, you go tidy up the bedrooms!” Bagheera ordered. So the punishment wasn’t over! Just the two of them to tidy up the rooms, it was a real persecution! Bea was about to reply, but Tommaso stood up saying nothing and keeping his head low he walked towards the rooms. She followed him, running to keep up.  
“Wait for me!”  
He sped up and Bea was forced to keep running to reach him, calling him again. “Tommy, come on… Wait for me!”  
But he didn’t want to hear. She managed to stop him just in front of the boys’ room because she grabbed his shoulders firmly and stepped in front of him.  
“I’m sorry, okay?” she spell out. “I just wanted to so something nice for you. I didn’t think they would have caught us. Here...” she twisted her hands, while he was looking at her upset and not a little softened by her words. “Take this.” she said hesitating, taking off her neckerchief full of pins. It was the most precious thing she owned and her moves were very insecure.  
“But… You can’t!” said Tommaso, forgetting about everything else.  
“I don’t deserve it!” she exclaimed, dramatic as always. “Until you won’t forgive me, I won’t deserve to be a Cub, and so… I won’t need this.”  
Beatrice swallowed and Tommaso knew that she was doing that only to show him how regretful she was. He took off his neckerchief as well, hesitating. He had more pins on it than Bea’s, because he had attended more camps than her.  
He handed it to her, to put it around her neck. Beatrice looked at him surprised. She knew that in that neckerchief there were all his memories, the camps he had attended, dummies and pins that people had given to him in the years… Some of them he’d lost, others were pretty old, others she had pinned herself on it. She smiled. She was glad she didn’t have to give up the Cubs.  
She raised her neckerchief too towards Tommaso and with a tacit agreement they swapped them.  
In that exact moment the craziest thing happened, even more incredible than that time when the leaders forgot them at the station.  
In that exact moment their lives changed forever. 

 

 

Constance had been awake for a while, but she hadn’t moved a muscle yet, afraid to wake him up. She was laying down with her eyes wide open, thinking. She thought so long that at some point she worried she could have waken him up with the sound of her thoughts.  
When she felt him embracing her waist, she finally moved and her face relaxed in a sweetened expression. D’Artagnan kissed her naked shoulder and sensually caressed her pregnant bely, until she turned to him.  
“Someone woke up in a good mood...” she smiled, kissing him on his lips.  
He looked at her with that face, the face that always melted her with desire, the one that said “I’ll get you now and I’ll never let you go”, but that was actually waiting for her approval.  
For how much he desired it, that time the approval didn’t come. Constance was smiling at him in a strange way. She smiled, but her eyes were almost crying, while she was taking his face in her hands and kissing him again on the corner of his mouth.  
“What’s wrong?” he asked, concerned, immersing his hand in her copper hair. After the first euphoric days for his return, Constance clouded, even if she was trying to not showing it. And he knew that it wasn’t about some change of mood due to her pregnancy: he knew the answer to that question already.  
She shook her head, staring at his eyes and sniffed. Her eyes filled with tears.  
“Don’t go.” she murmured in a low voice. It wasn’t like her, she’d never been a woman like that, but the idea of being alone again, with the baby about to be born, had sunk her in a deep, dark tunnel from where she couldn’t see a way out if not staying with D’Artagnan forever and not having to be apart again.  
But she knew it was impossible.  
“Constance… Look at me.” he couldn’t do a promise like that and he knew, but what else could he say? “I’ll come back.” he assured, looking into her eyes determined. “I’ll come back before he’ll be born.” if the first was a risky hypothesis, this was a utopia, and even Constance realised it because she smiled as if D’Artagnan had just said a joke to make her feel better.  
“I’m sorry. I know that I shouldn’t have asked.” she said, calmer, shaking her head again disappointed. What was wrong with her? Of course he would came back.  
Their love was something beyond the war. He promised her he would have been back for her birthday and he did: then again, to see her pregnancy belly and there it was.  
Even though Constance had a bad feeling, she knew that he would have kept this last promise too. She wanted to deceive herself that everything would have been all right. She won’t have waited for the baby’s birth, but she hoped that in a year they could have been together, this time forever. The war in Spain was turning in their advantage. Soon they would have been a family.  
D’Artagnan made that face again, and then he slipped under the sheet. He kissed her belly many times, making her wincing and giggling because of the tickling and the pleasure.  
“D’Artagnan!” Porthos’ voice interrupted her sharply and his insisting knocking on the door made him wanting to do the same thing on his friend’s teeth. Why did he have to be so loud?  
“Oh, no...” Constance whispered at his side. “Don’t tell me that...”  
In the moment he came back, she’d told him she didn’t want to know how many days they could have spent together, before he had to leave again. She didn’t want to know, she would have been full of anxiety, counting the days. In that way she enjoyed his husband for five amazing days, but the moment she feared had arrived. She had hoped to keep him at her side a little longer.  
“Constance...” he murmured, plunging his face in her hair and deeply breathing her perfume. “Oh, I wish I...”  
“Go.” she ordered, trying to maintain a firm voice, while the tears were itching her eyes again. “Go, now.” she repeated, but her tone was trembling now.  
She knew that if he had stopped to say goodbye, she wouldn’t have the courage to let him go and she didn’t want D’Artagnan to see the pitiful scene of her trying to hold him like a desperate.  
He hesitated for the longest seconds, in her arms, her hair and the sheet. He was breathing slowly and deeply, like he was getting ready to do a three meters jump, and meanwhile he was looking into her eyes, determined to impress in his mind every moment, every curl, every wink of her eyes, every shade of her perfume.  
At the nth time that Porthos knocked on the door, he suddenly stood up, he quickly got dressed and he went away without saying a word, his heart full of emotions. He walked past his friend and went down the stairs, then he dried a tear in secret, pretending to fix his shirt’s neck.  
Constance stared into space for an endless time. Her breathing started to accelerate uncontrolled, until it turned into sobs, which later exploded in a frustrating scream.  
Porthos heard it, he looked towards D’Artagnan’s room and with resigned air he pushed his hat on his forehead. 

 

Constance had been screaming for at least half an hour. She couldn’t keep inside all of her mental and physical pain, it was ripping her apart. And D’Artagnan didn’t appeare at that door to held his baby into his arms, she felt she could have died in that moment.  
The Queen had put at her service her best doctors and she was waiting out of the door herself. Constance declined her offer to hold her hand, and she would have said sorry about that later, but she couldn’t risk to break Gisela two fingers. And she would have been too ashamed of all that screaming and crying she couldn’t keep in.  
“D’Artagnan… D’Artagnan...” she murmured when the contractions would leave her free to breath. But despite her mantra, D’Artagnan hadn’t arrived. The doctor announced that it was time to start pushing, but she didn’t want to. She would have kept the baby inside until she saw him coming back. He promised that, he would have come into that door to hold his baby!  
“No!” she screamed with another contraction. “He… Where is he?!” she asked, in vain.  
“Push, now!” the doctor ordered with authority. Constance sobbed, she grabbed the sheet and she squeezed her hands until it was hurting. She knew she had to do it, or she would have hurt the baby. So, she did it, but just to not have to tell her husband that their baby died because of her.  
He was born. Midnight had just passed. She held him, but she didn’t feel nothing of the feelings that Anna described her and that she could feel just watching her playing with her child. She held life in her arms but she felt dead inside. 

 

 

Notes:

* Leaders and even cooks have a name from “The jungle book”. Akela and Bagheera are usually the leaders (in this fanfiction, they are), the other names you will see belong to the cooks.  
** A.C..: Akela’s Committee. It’s formed by the older Cubs, they organise games for the younger Cubs and help the leaders.


	2. Gifts and losses

"Akela… Akela, are you awake?"

"Eh?!" Tommaso woke up suddenly. Someone was knocking repeatedly at the door. He looked around and it took him a while to understand where he was: it wasn't his bedroom.

Shoot! What time was it? Had the alarm already rung? Was it possible that he didn't hear that?

"Y- Yeah, I'm coming!" he babbled, throwing himself out of the bed, almost tripping into the sheets. He looked for his clothes, but his eyes stumbled upon the shape rolling into the bed from which he'd just stood up.

Beatrice was still sleeping, serene. By rolling into the bed the sheet had moved, showing her naked breast and probably that was the reason she was showing such a satisfied face, considering the oppressive heat of those days. Her very long brown hair framed her face, spilled across the pillow. Tommaso desperately wanted to dive himself again into her perfumed hair, but he just looked away. He scrambled another bed like if he'd just slept in it, covered Bea with the sheet and went opening the door. A little blond boy as tall as his hip was staring at him, lost.

In that moment Tommaso realised it was still dark outside.

"What's wrong, Samu? What time is it?" he rubbed his eyes. That's why he was still so tired.

"I had a nightmare. And Marco keeps snoring, I can't sleep any more!" the boy replied, trying to look inside the room.

Tommaso stepped in front of him, preventing him from looking closer.  
He knew that Cub and he knew that it wasn't like him to go there and wake them up in the middle of the night because of a nightmare… But, still, he was just a boy, Tommaso thought. In an impulse of compassion, he was about to offer to go with him to the boys' room and stay with him until he would have fallen asleep again.

"Why don't you sleep with the cooks? All the leaders sleep with the cooks." said Samuele suddenly, trying again to peek into the room.

Oh.

Now things were clearer. Tommaso smiled with the face of someone who had just unmasked someone else. "Goodnigh, Samu." and he closed the door, turning the key. He took off his trousers and threw himself into bed again, ignoring the boy protesting and keep knocking on the door.

"Akela! Akela! But I really had a nightmare!"

Tommaso giggled, wallowing in Bea's hair.

"What…?" she mumbled, without even opening her eyes.

"Just ignore him." Tommy replied decisive. "They're still investigating."

Beatrice sighed exhausted and hugged him. Like she did every time before falling asleep, her index started to tickle him in the middle of his naked chest. Tommaso smiled and let her do that, until she fell asleep again.

But it was more difficult for him to sleep.

He went back to that day, fifteen years ago, in that same house, when everything had changed. He never knew what happened to Bea when he put his neckerchief to her neck, because the headache that hit him was so bad that he fell on the floor instantaneously, squeezing his eyes, with his hands on his temples, while fast images were running in his head like a film.

He saw himself kissing a girl in a market. But he was older, she was older, and she was Bea, but not exactly Bea. They wore strange clothes, they had different hairstyles. There they were, in a little church, they were getting married. There were other people with them… And suddenly she had a big belly and he had to leave her alone, and then the war, the shooting…

And then again he was with her. But, again, she was a different woman. She arrived in that graveyard, lost, confused. They dug a hole in the soil at the roots of a big tree and they dug up a necklace, and hanging from that…

Some details were like locked and every time he would try to focus on them, a bad headache would strike him.

They were happy together, but then an illness landed him in a hospital. He saw her blurred, he wasn't even sure it was her, but he was sure she'd stayed at his side until the end. And then he didn't see anything any more.

When he recovered, the leaders were helping them to stand on their feet, worried; they told them they accidentally bumped their heads against each other.

Bea hadn't be the same any more. She'd become kinder with him, she wouldn't give him instructions any more, she wouldn't force him in her troubles again.

From the winter of their twelve years, months had passed and Bea had started looking at him with different eyes: she had fell in love. She confessed him years later, when he finally woke up and started thinking back to that sort of dream he had had in the scouts' house's hall.

Back then, he had wondered many times why in the hell he should have kissed her. She was his friend, he didn't want to do those things with her! But then the answer had become so clear that he couldn't do anything but chuckle every time he thought he was so childish to be disgusted at the thought of kissing such a beautiful girl.

He'd missed that little crazy girl that always put him in trouble, but of course he loved the mature, determined Bea she'd become. A veil of sadness sometimes would fall on her eyes and he would understand that she was remembering that day, but despite his insistence, she'd never wanted to tell him what she saw or heard that day.

He narrowed his eyes looking at her and trying to get asleep. She was already sleeping peacefully.

_A gift from the past…_

… From long time ago, maybe from many times. In a warm twilight sleep, Tommaso held her hand on his chest and he tried to enjoy those last moments before dawn.  
  
  
  
  
"Come on, everyone out with Akela!" Beatrice drove the Cubs to go out with Tommaso.

Francesco, the new cook, widened his eyes looking at the children following Tommy outside and starting stretching all together.

"I don't understand where they get all that energy in the morning. I'd rather go back to bed." he laughed, sitting on the bench exhausted.

"It's not for everyone. The first camp is always the toughest. Everything good in the kitchen?" Bea asked, tying her long brown hair in an updo.

"Yes, except that the landlord is not getting our calls since yesterday night." Stefano intervened, he was one of the longtime cooks in the group. "We can't find the rolling pin, we'll have to roll the pasta dough with some bottles." he sighed, resigned.

"That's weird." Bea sentenced, thoughtful. "He's usually vigilant when there's someone in the house."

They'd known Mr. Felice since they were children and they knew he'd always been sensitive with all of the needs of his lodgers; he even used to visit them daily, despite the fact that he lived kilometres away.

Damiano, the third cook, shook his shoulders. "Well, maybe his wife forgot to inform him. Didn't she say that he was on a business trip, when she came to give us the keys?" he tried to remember the woman's words, muffled by the children's noisy enthusiasm, while they were running everywhere.

But Beatrice had already pulled away from the conversation. She was looking at Tommaso in the courtyard, jumping up and down and widening his arms and legs, with all the children copying his gestures. She smiled, softened.

"I've told you, the Mafia is involved in this..." Stefano joked.

That was a recurring joke. They'd never understood how Mr. Felice could afford all that goodies, even if many groups often rented it.

The first floor was huge: there was the refectory, that could host up to forty people, a large hall, the kitchen, in which at least four people could cook without interfering with each other's work, a private bathroom and some children's toilets.

The first floor was largely occupied by an enormous hall, the one that Tommaso and Beatrice well remembered, two dorms for the children with a total of forty beds, two bedrooms with ten beds each, an office and more toilets and bathrooms with showers.  
Not to mention the garden…

"You silly..." Beatrice giggled to Stefano's joke. "I'm going out, I'll see you at lunch." She take leave and Bea walked quickly to the exit, with Tommaso's neckerchief bouncing on her chest.  
  
  
  
  
  
"NO!"

A broken, heartbreaking shout tore the silence in the Garrison's courtyard.

Constance fell on her knees, with her hands covering her nose and mouth, her face soaked with tears and her look lost somewhere else.

Like if someone punched her in the stomach, she bent, twitching in a pain that grew and grew and twisted her organs from the inside, whistled in her ear and stabbed her brain. It grew until she didn't feel it any more. And the she didn't feel anything else.

She passed out in the bare earth of the yard, falling in a dull thud, and Athos couldn't catch her in time.

He tried to revive her, in vain. Porthos came and lift her up in his arms. They brought her in the Captain's office. Nobody was speaking.

Athos sat on the bed, next to her. Porthos held his head in his hands, sitting at the table. In a religious silence, they waited. Even Treville came, he didn't say a word and he sat next to Porthos.

Constance woke up with a panic attack. She was breathing fast and even if her eyes explored the room and the people in there, she appeared not to see anyone, even though everyone had jumped up to comfort her. She started shaking and she tried to get up, in vain.

As she realised the news, she gradually started crumple herself like a dying leaf.

Athos had put his hands on her shoulders and he'd spoken out loud, spelling the words, but she couldn't hear him. Her eyes were empty but full of tears and her heart was beating swollen from the pain, beneath her hand on her chest.

_I saw him falling._

_We immediately tried to rescue him._

_He asked us to tell you that he will always love you._

_And then…_

_Constance, I'm sorry._

_D'Artagnan is dead._

She could perfectly remember the words she heard from Athos before passing out, and the fact that everyone was there confirmed that it hadn't been just a nightmare.

The nightmare was real, the reality was a nighmare.

D'Artagnan was dead. Her D'Artagnan, her husband, her son's father, her best friend, the man she loved.

Dead.

She wouldn't be able to see him again. And she didn't even kiss him for the last time. She was an idiot for not doing that, and now she wouldn't be able to do it again.

_Never again._

His laugh. Never again.

His hands. Never again.

His look. Never again.

His voice. Never again.

And the way he used to touch her, to kiss her, to take her, and his whispers before sleeping, his hugs, his jokes, his thoughts, his concerns and the picture of him holding his son, looking proudly at her, saying "Look what we did together...", his perfume filling the air, combing his hair with her fingers, the kiss in the middle of the market, the field elm, his insolence, his arrogance and his bravery, the way they consoled each others when they'd lost their friends…

Past and future melted together, forming a mass of sparse thoughts, remembering her things she would have never and ever felt, heard or tasted any more.

"Constance!"

"D'Artagnan…?" she asked in a low voice.

But when she started looking at the reality again, it took a while to understand that it hadn't been her husband to call her.

An hallucination, his voice's ghost.

In front of her there was Athos. His watery eyes, he looked tired, the pale face of who spent too many nights awake.

Constance shared pitiful looks with everyone in the room. Porthos couldn't make it: he had to cover his eyes with his hand to dry the tears. Treville broke the silence that weighed the oppressive and unbreathable air.

"I think you should say goodbye to him."

Constance nodded after many seconds, still shaking, confused and stunned. Athos grabbed her cold hands and helped her getting up on her feet. She moved awkward steps, as if she'd just learnt to walk, her legs were weak .

They escorted her like a walking dead.

She cried and sobbed for hours in front of D'Artagnan's body, not able to touch him. It wasn't him any more. An empty shell, with no soul.

He was gone and he wouldn't come back any more. It wasn't him.

_A bunch of bones and pale flesh._

They'd washed him, they'd taken care of him. On his face she could read a slightly furrowed expression, the spirit of the last emotion that slipped on him before he died.

Constance stared for a long time at the little hole in the middle of his chest, she felt on her breast the same pain he must have felt when they'd shot him. She couldn't find peace in thinking he mustn't have suffered too much before dying.

She would have suffered her whole life for being selfish.

She worked up the courage and she touched him. She rubbed his wound with the index. She caressed his face. She kissed his forehead. But she felt he wasn't there, he couldn't feel her. And she felt stupid in kissing a dead thing, like she was cuddling a stone.

Athos walked in. He was even more shaken and worried. He was trying to avoid the sight of D'Artagnan's body.

"Constance..." he called, and she turned to him, wincing. She started sighing again out of control, until she rushed herself into his arms. He held her tightly, angrily. She thought she heard in his breathe a hiccup, but she couldn't say if she was crying as well.

Treville and Porthos went in too. They took off their hats and stared at the dead body that wasn't their friend any more. But they seemed to recognise him still, they thought he could hear them. Why she couldn't do that?

Treville caressed his forehead, moving his hair and Porthos put his hand on his shoulder, in a friendly gesture; he tried to smile.

"I'll see you, D'Artagnan." he whispered with a lump in his throat. And he couldn't keep himself from crying.

Constance couldn't move. She wanted to stay in Athos' arms, or anyone else's, pretending it was him. The Captain's leathered uniform was soaked with the woman's tears when they offered to escort her to the Louvre, to benefit from the Queen's consolation.

She didn't want to go back. She didn't want to think she had a son she had to mind by herself, or her whole life. A son who would always reminded her that D'Artagnan lived in him. She wanted to forget she was a mother.

Gisela would have reminded her, and Constance started to hate the idea of hearing that thing, who knows how many times. It wasn't like that, it wasn't like all of them thought. That son wasn't a blessing, but a constant reminder to the fact that D'Artagnan was gone forever.

It would have killed her, gradually consuming her soul.

There wasn't a shred of joy left in her.


	3. Good night, little Cub

Tommaso stuck the plaster on the crying boy's peeled knee.

"Here you go. Look, you can't even tell." he smiled, running his hand through Samuele's blond hair; he was sighing and sniffing loudly.

"But it hurts!" he complained. "Akela, it's killing me!"

"You'll see that tomorrow you won't even remember this. Now it's bedtime!"

The evening was humid and you could smell the summer in the air. Beatrice was walking all the others Cubs to the bathrooms. The Big Game had been a success. The enemy – which were none other than the cooks – had been defeated in a battle full of twists and the kids were still excited and they were chatting loudly.

"… what about when I hit Kaa on the back?"

"… he fell like a hot potato…!"

"… Bagheera has been amazing!"

"The Oath is tomorrow, right?" Samuele asked. He knew that every time someone talked about the ceremony, all the adults remembered how little and cute he was and encouraged him.

"Well, yeah. Are you excited about that?" Tommaso winked, smiling. "You'll see how good you'll look with your new neckerchief!" he pointed at the white cloth that the Cubs who hadn't officially entered in the group had to wear. The following day, after they would have said the Oath, it would have been replaced with the red and blue one that almost everyone else in the group wore.

Completely forgetful about his bruise, Samuele grabbed Tommaso's neckerchief and suddenly pulled it, forcing him to get closer to not be strangled. He started to look at every badge on it, curious.

"What is this?"

"My old badge from when I was in the Akela's Committee." he explained, patiently.

"What about this?"

"A puppet that a leader gave me, a long ago."

"What about this?" he asked again, staring at a bear-shaped badge.

"Well… That's not mine." Tommaso confessed, blushing.

"How come it's not yours? If the neckerchief is yours..."

"It hasn't been always my neckerchief." he smiled, getting up on his feet and adjusting the tangled cloth from where everything had begun.

Samuele was staring at him with his mouth opened, as they were his big blue eyes, that were screaming "how could you do something like that?", but Tommaso just chuckled and grabbed his hand to walk him upstairs.

"Come on, let's go. It's pretty late."

The little boy followed him waddling and asking him thousands of questions to which he replied amused with few puzzling words.

He crossed Beatrice's eyes in the girls' bathroom and smiled at her. She replied with a mischievous look that Tommaso knew very well and that every time made him want to make love to her wherever they were in that moment. But the night was long: they had to read the stories to the kids, sing until everyone was asleep and then go downstairs to finish the cards tournament with the cooks.

Tommaso was hoping that Beatrice could find an excuse to ditch the last part, possibly a good one, not followed by teasing and mocking.

He'd never been good in lying, so he just avoided it; plus, he'd always tried to fulfil the Oath, even if it was about innocent lies.

He found a moment alone with Beatrice, two seconds during which he managed to whisper: "shall we split in the dorms, so it'd be quicker?"

She replied with the same look and he gave her a knowing one, shaking his head and giggling, then he went into the boys' dorm, with the songs book and the stories one. He wasn't good at making up tales to get them to sleep, not like Bea. His stories always ended up too confusing and the kids instead of sleep, kept asking explanations.

Beatrice was able to make up incredible and relaxing stories, either for girls and boys, and they would just fell asleep like little angels before the end was told.

She shut the girls' dorm's door and started to try sort the things out among the girls.

"Bagheera, can you adjust my sleeping bag?"

"Bagheera, can we hear the elephant story tonight?"

"But where's Akela, why he isn't coming?"

With the usual reassuring determination, she calmly replied to every question and satisfied every request, until everyone was in bed. She kissed each girl on the cheeks and they kissed her back, tenderly. The warmer ones would hang to her neck and wouldn't let her go.

In the end, unkempt and tired, she sat on the bed of Camilla, the youngest of the almost-Cubs, and she started to recount, running her fingers through her hair.

Sometimes she didn't remember she had been so little, a long time ago.

The first time she'd attended a camp she'd got close to Tommaso right away and she hadn't let him go since then. She was terrified even if she'd never showed it, hiding behind a proud mask. Some of those girls reminded her of herself, excited for a simple two-toned neckerchief, looking forward to take off the white one that made them feel more neutral compared to the others that had been known each other for years.

But she remembered how it was to be part of the A.C., to help the younger Cubs, to make them feel part of the group and, sometimes, to dare more than everyone else, hoping in the leaders' tolerance. Lectures and punishments, but also satisfaction: it was in those years that the maternal instinct was born in her, roughly when her love for Tommaso had started to bloom.

"Once upon a time there was a handsome prince..." she started to tell.

"Was he Akela?" asked an A.C. girl, shrewder than the little once, who laughed anyway, enhancing the joke.

"It was him." Beatrice replied, calmly. "He was running from the guards that believed he was a thief, on the streets full of market's stands, when..."

From the boys room they heard them exploding into laughter.

Tommaso had tried to change the book history in something more adventurous, with the result that a rabbit and a snake ended up together and when the boys had asked him which animal would have been born from that unusual couple, he had replied "a snabbit", unleashing their amusement.

Luckily, he managed to lower the tone of the story, so that they could relax, and he started to sing the notes of "Goodnight, little Cub", one of his favourites songs.

While he was singing, he walked among the beds with the torchlight on, checking that nobody chatted or played.

Beatrice, from the other room, heard him singing and she started singing the same song for the girls. It wasn't the song she would have chosen, but she hoped that Tommaso could hear her through the wall and smile.

Most of the girls were already asleep. The little ones were always the first, exhausted by the emotions of the busy day to which they weren't used.

After a few minutes, they couldn't hear anything else but their songs.

Tommaso finished the melody, walked out of the boys' dorm and went into the girls'. He could see Bea's back, and she didn't notice him; he looked at her for a moment, while she was singing the last notes from "Goodnight, little Cub"; at that point he revealed himself by flashing the torch.

She smiled to him, whispering the end of the song: "… sleep little Cub, sleep Baloo..."

Beatrice was about to get closer, but before she could do that, they heard a loud noise from downstairs and they both winced.

"Bagheera!" some of the girls cried, waking up, scared. Beatrice and Tommaso shared a thoughtful look and both of them shook their heads.

"It's nothing, go back to sleep..." she tried to reassure them, walking towards the bed of Camilla, who was sitting and looking around confused.

She started the song back again and the girls laid down again, while Tommaso went back to the boys' dorm, cursing in a whisper the cooks that probably had dropped a pan, tidying up the kitchen.

  
  
  
  
  
  


Charles was his father's reflection and Constance hated it.

He was about to be one and every day was a torture for her to feed that little thing with D'Artagnan's eyes, name and insolence.

She wasn't counting the sleepless night no more. When Charles wasn't crying, she couldn't sleep anyway.

At the beginning, she'd been helped by a wet nurse, but then, on the Queen's advice, she'd started to look after her child herself, at least for a part of the day, hoping to find a connection with him. But Constance wouldn't find that special bond between a mother and her child, like Gisela with hers.

It was a terrible idea.

Every night she would look forward to the morning to come, and be able to go back to her duty, leaving Charles to the wet nurse and pretend he didn't exist for a while.

She realised that it was a horrible thought and she'd never told anyone, but the Queen had been suspicious for some time: she knew that something was wrong. Constance wouldn't smile any more from the day D'Artagnan left for war. She would make fake smiles, when her job and good manners required, but her look was empty, her eyes red because of the insomnia and the tears.

How could she go back in time?

  
  


_How could she go back in that bed?_

  
  


Some nights, for a second, it seemed like someone was breathing next to her in the bed and those were the only nights she could close her eyes and sleep for a few hours, even if she couldn't believe the things that people used to say.

"D'Artagnan will always be with you",

"He still lives in your heart...",

"He still lives in your child".

All lies!

If D'Artagnan was still among them, he surely would have sent her a clear message. The breathe she heard some nights was just her imagination; it just comforted her for a while, just the time to get asleep.

She didn't remember the last time she saw him.

  
  


_Because it wasn't him._

  
  


D'Artagnan's cold, still corpse was blurred in her mind. She remembered the feeling of the bullet's hole on her fingers and from time to time she did the same gesture on her chest, in the same point, hoping one day to find a similar wound and be able to join him.

She'd thought about this many times, but she didn't have the courage. The only thing that kept her alive was the thought that maybe one day she would have been able to remember the happy times with D'Artagnan and smile, thinking about that like a happy part of her life.

She had to carry on with her life, to honour his. But she couldn't make it with Charles.

That night had been a sleepless one, she'd been awake rocking the baby in her arms and trying to make him stop crying. Probably he had gum ache: the first teeth were growing. Gisela was enthusiastic, like she'd been with her child, and she kept telling her, happily, what a joy would have been to hear his first words.

Constance didn't believe her. If she hadn't felt not even a sense of maternal instinct up to that moment, it wouldn't have happened just because the baby would have said "Mom", one day.

Many times she'd missed Anne, even if the new Queen was as kind and generous with her.

Anne would have understood: she was her friend, she treated her like a peer and not like her little sister.

But Anne was dead. Constance witnessed with horror her execution, preceded by Aramis'. She would have rather end up like her, at least she wouldn't have been forced to suffer so much her lover's loss…

"Come on, be quiet..." she coldly said to the baby, while she kept rocking him in an automatic way. When the children cried for so long, the other mothers and even the wet nurses were always patient and suffered with them.

Constance was suffering just because she wanted to go to bed, even if she wouldn't have slept, and not hearing that screaming that reminded her that she was a bad mother.

She was suffering because she couldn't remind any more the field elm, the one under which she and D'Artagnan used to lay and look up at the sky, the clouds, even the rain, and make love, and whisper sweet words to each other. When they were happy. Where was it?

D'Artagnan would have been disappointed. He did nothing but repeat her how good she would have been with the baby and she'd believed it so much, before he was born. She was looking forward to do all those things that mothers do.

Along with him, though. This was the big condition without which her believing had fallen apart with only three simple words.

  
  


_D'Artagnan is dead._

  
  


She couldn't remember that day clearly, but she would repeat in her mind what Athos had told her, in order to hurt herself, and immediately tears filled her eyes.

Porthos, Treville and particularly Athos had been really supportive to her. But they were just a constant reminding of D'Artagnan's absence.

"Madame..." the wet nurse murmured, sleepy, entering the room. "I'll take him. Go back to rest." she offered, stretching her arms out to take Charles.

Constance didn't hesitate and gave the baby to her, thanked and went back to bed, hearing in the distance that the baby's crying had already started to calm.

The following morning her eyes were watery and sore and her eyelids heavy, but she had some duties to do, and accompany the Queen to a meeting with Treville.

Although, before she could say anything about the meeting, Gisela pulled her on one side.

She was so different from her precursor that everyone had struggled to accept Luis' choice of getting married again so soon. But apparently he needed to have a legitimate heir as soon as possible, which happened almost immediately.

Everyone in the kingdom considered Gisela a better Queen than Anne because she'd given him a male heir right after the wedding. But Constance knew that there was more than that… All of them knew. And none of them had forgotten that child that Constance used to take care of with love, along with Anne, and that in the end had been taken away from her, in spite of her effort to defend him.

He had been sent to Anne's parents, in Austria. At least, the thought he was in a safe place, brought some justice to the one who had been her Queen.

"I wish I could do something for you, Constance." Gisela told her, pitiful.

The only thing she wanted was something that nobody could have never give back to her. She didn't need her sympathy.

"I'm fine, Your Highness. I'm recovering. I know I don't look so good, and I'm sorry that Your Majesty has to..."

"Stop, Constance. There's no need to lie. On the top of being my dame, you are my friend." Constance's nostrils dilated in an imperceptible way. Anne was her friend, Gisela was just… she didn't like those speech, even if she understood her good intentions. "And I know you're not fine. You need a break."

A break was the last thing she needed. The only break she needed was from Charles, not from her job, which was the only activity able to distract her.

She shook her head with a pitiful look on her face.

"I can't, Your Majesty. Don't do that to me, please." she begged, completely exposing herself and giving her a reason to worry.

The Queen smiled and took her hands.

"Dear Constance. Trust me, what you need is some more time with your child. A few hours in the evening are not enough: I was insensitive to think that they could be enough. I'm not sending you away from the Palace, it's your house now. But I will be fine for some time even without you."

Gisela smiled at her and Constance couldn't reply any more.

The Queen dismissed her and she went back in her room, sadly. It was the Queen's command, she couldn't reply. What would she have done for all that time alone with Charles?

He still couldn't do nothing special. What did the wet nurse do with him?

If she had asked her, the low esteem that woman had for her would have fallen down.

How could the thought of being with her child taunting her to the point to not sleep at night?

Constance opened the drawer and took a crucifix out of it. It was the same item that had caused the death of Anne and Aramis, who'd left it to D'Artagnan.

And D'Artagnan had given it to her. It was the only memory she had of him, even if it wasn't his.

She kissed it and put it away.

She looked down to that little pink creature in his white blanket, a lock of dark hair popped out of the bonnet and his hands opened and closed slowly. He should have inspired her tenderness, but she felt nothing but anger.

She picked him up, he wailed but didn't wake up.

"D'Artagnan..." Constance murmured indistinguishably. She opened her mouth again, but then she closed it.  
  
  
_Forgive me._


	4. Lost souls

Tommaso was still trying to calm the children, when he heard some steps climbing up the stairs. He found it particularly weird, because usually the cooks at that time were sorting out the dishes or starting to play some board game and it was unusual for them to come upstairs altogether.  
He stayed with his ear open, while putting Samuele back to bed, since he had jumped out to call for him when he’d heard the noise downstairs. Then he heard an awful thud that made his heart jump into his throat: the girls’ dorm’s door must have been opened so hardly that it had slammed against the wall behind.  
They heard the girl’s voices screaming, shaken.  
“Who are you?!” Beatrice exclaimed.  
Tommaso realised he had to do something, quickly. He allowed himself just three seconds to look around the room. And then, with a determination that didn’t belong to him, made a decision.  
“Everyone under your beds.” he ordered, determined, in a whisper. “Quick and silent.”  
“What’s happening, Akela?” one of the little asked, not caring to keep his voice down.  
Tommaso shushed him sharply. Later that night, he wondered how he could have acted with such a lucidity knowing that Beatrice and everyone else were in danger.  
“I don’t want to go under my bed...” the little boy cried, clearly shaken. Tommaso looked around. There was a little door that opened in a niche, a crawl space, where all the spare pillows and sheets had been amassed.  
While the other children obeyed, with that particular diligency, Tommy lifted up the little boy and let him enter into the closet.  
“Don’t make a noise.” he recommended. Then he had to think really quick. There was room for at least other three children there, as many as the little ones of the group were. None of them was more than seven years old.  
“Samu, Dany, Manu, come here!” he called. One by one he lifted them up and put them on the sheets in the closet, but he’d just grabbed Samuele when he heard many steps coming out from the girls’ dorm: there was no more time.  
He let the boy on the floor, quickly closed the closet’s door and stood in front of him.  
A man opened the door, and Tommaso felt like an idiot to not have thought of blocking it with something heavy. The children were hiding, thinly disguised under their beds, but he could hear someone crying and one of the eldest order them to be quiet.  
In the closet, luckily, all was quiet.  
The light turned on.  
  
Bea was holding his hand so tightly that it hurt.  
They brought them downstairs in the big hall. No way off, four guns against them. After a while the cooks arrived too, with their hands behind their head and another gun against them.  
Francesco was helped by Stefano: his right leg was bleeding profusely, colouring his light jeans in a creepy dark brown.  
“NO!” Bea shouted instinctively, seeing him in that way, but one of the five ordered her to shut up, moving the gun against her.  
Three of them were particularly well-built. And the children were there, they couldn’t risk any bold move, someone could have got hurt. When Bea understood that the odds were against them, her eyes filled with tears of hatred and frustration.  
Bun when she saw the determination in Tommaso’s look, she knew that he had something in mind. She also knew that it was something stupid and risky.  
“No.” she whispered, drawing his attention. Tommaso ignored her.  
“Against the wall!” the shortest among the five exclaimed, making them stand against the hall’s walls. The children were terrified, many were crying, the little girls’ bottom part of their pyjamas were soaked.  
Beatrice looked around, she saw that Francesco, wounded, limped to the wall and sat on the floor, then she counted the children. Three of them were missing!  
They were the three little ones, still not initiated. Only Samuele was there, clinging to Tommaso’s leg and looking at the robbers with watery eyes, clearly holding back from burst into tears.  
She was holding some of the little girls herself, and she was moved seeing that the A.C.’s children were doing the same. Even if they were no older than twelve and frightened to death, they stayed strong to reassure the others.  
They were true scouts.  
  
_On my honor I will do my best_  
_to do my duty to God and my country_  
_to help other people at all times_  
_and to obey the Scout Law._  
  
Stefano started to murmur the Oath in a low voice, to encourage the Cubs to do the same, so that they could stay strong, even if their voices were overwhelmed by the four robbers agruing.  
“He said there was nobody, damn!! Who the hell are these!?”  
One of them run his hands in his hair, but the shortest got them all under fire. And they were too distant to try a surprise attack.  
“Well, what should we do with them now? They saw us!”  
“We tie them up and leave them here, no?!”  
“Sure, and how exactly do you think we could tie up thirty people? They will screw this up...”  
“WE WON’T SPEAK!” Bea’s exclamation echoed in the big bare hall.  
She heard the whole conversation and knew where it was going. One of them walked quickly towards her, pointing the gun against her head. The children screamed, but Beatrice didn’t move.  
“We won’t say anything.” she challenged the robber’s glance, determined. “Let us go. We are miles away from the village, the bus won’t be there before tomorrow night, and you can take our pho--”  
“SHUT UP!” he yelled, now pointing the gun against Tommaso, “Shut up or I’ll shoot.”  
Tommaso didn’t move, but this time she winced, scared. She shut her lips and hold her breath, while the children’s screaming had increased, turning into crying.  
The guy stepped back, switching his aim between Tommaso, Beatrice and the cooks, in whose eyes Betrice could read the same determination of his boyfriend: they had something in mind. Or at least Stefano and Damiano. Francesco was sitting on the floor using a little girl’s neckerchief as a tourniquet to stop the leg’s bleeding. He was sweating and painted in pain. An A.C. kid was helping him to tighten the neckerchief around his leg.  
Beatrice started to panic. She dared a risky move and Tommaso was about to pay the consequences. They wasn’t a way out. They were trapped.  
  
_Claustrophobia? No._  
  
Her chest started to go up and down spasmodically, as she breathed quickly; her eyes flashing from one side to another of the room, from Francesco to Tommaso, to Samuele, to the girls, to the robbers as fast as a tilted flipper.  
“Bea.” Tommaso called, grabbing her hand.  
Her lips were shaking.  
“It’s happening again.” she murmured in a whisper.  
“What?” he asked, confused.  
But she couldn’t hear him, in her mind pictures of that day, from fifteen years ago, kept running.  
She put a hand on her chest like she could slow her heartbeat, but as soon as she touched the thing that once was Tommaso’s neckerchief, it happened.  
The migraine that she’d never felt any more in her life after that day, split her head open. She felt the cold floor under her knees and tried to hang on something, but she failed and her palms fell on the ground too.  
She could hear Tommaso’s voice in the distance, calling her in panic.  
Steps were coming closer.  
The kids were screaming.  
Damiano was screaming.  
Stefano was screaming.  
Tommy screamed.  
A gunshot.  
Darkness.  
  
  
  
  
  
“Athos! Athos!”  
The Captain had just woken up, when he heard the vigorous steps on the stairs and Porthos’ voice calling him repeatedly and loudly. It must had been something serious.  
He quickly wore his jacket and crossed his friend on the threshold.  
He saw the panic in his eyes.  
“Constance...”  
That only word was enough to make him assume the worst. But when he looked outside he saw the woman in the yard. Athos ran down the stairs rapidly, never taking his eyes off her.  
Something had happened: he could read it on her face.  
Porthos shook her with delicacy from her shoulder, calling her name loudly, but she seemed to be in another world. With a sign, the Musketeers made Athos understand that he must have been tried many times to recover her, in vain.  
“Constance!”  
Athos joined him in the attempt of bringing her back to reality, but the widow – _widow_ , it still sounded weird – seemed to not being able to hear them. The hem of her dress and her shoes were covered in mud and soaked wet, her lips were bloodless, her eyes red, but she was sitting on the bench in a standing, all put together position, with her hands on her lap; a frozen, creepy doll.  
And she had the same face she had that day, only with no tears.  
“What…?” Athos was about to ask, but Porthos interrupted him to explain.  
“I found her like this, here, she hasn’t said a word.”  
“The Queen must be looking for her.” the Captain suggested. He shared eloquent looks with Porthos, then he bent in front of Constance, putting his hands on her shoulders: he wanted to try one more time, before asking to someone else for help.  
“Constance. It’s me.” his warm, controlled voice seemed to do the miracle they were hoping for.  
Unexpectedly, the woman had a gasp, like if she was just come out from a trance-like state that had brought her in another dimension.  
  
_In another time…_  
  
And, as happened in the past, her return to the reality was traumatic: her eyes started to glimpse everywhere, without realising how she got into the Garrison or why. They stopped on the two Musketeers – two, only two of them survived – without being able to read the concern on their tense faces.  
She touched her own face with trembling hands, like if she wanted to check if she was wounded or simply to be alive. She ran her fingers through her copper curls and with a pure terror expression on her face started to taunt a lock of hair, twisting it around her index.  
“Constance. What happened?” Athos asked, grabbing her hands to make her keep contact with the real world and avoid that her eyes got lost again in what seemed to be a terrible limbo made of anxiety and pain.  
“The thing that...” the sentence died in an undefinable mumbling, her trembling lips whispered incomprehensible words.  
“What thing?” Athos asked.  
A shadow fell over Porthos’ face, revealing his suspect that something had happened, something about which Athos hadn’t thought yet – he didn’t want to think about it.  
“The thing that… D’Artagnan… that D’Artagnan… wanted...” Constance repeated, as if she had studied that sentence in her head a milion times. But now that she was speaking, it seemed to have become real and false.  
It was dragging her again in that world.  
“Constance, stay with us!” Athos’ voice impose, drawing her attention successfully. The woman looked in his eyes.  
“Where have you been? Why...” and he stopped.  
In that awful moment he realised that his subconscious had prevented him from thinking about that thing, but he knew it should have been the first question to ask her.  
He swallowed.  
“Where is Charles?” he asked in a low voice.  
“D’Artagnan...” she replied, “D’Artagnan… is dead.”  
“Not D’Art-- damn it!” the Captain cursed, losing his patience and stepping back from her. He ran a hand through his hair, sharing other mute looks with Porthos, which seemed to have found confirmation in the woman’s hermetic reply.  
Hearing D’Artagnan’s name still brought him back to that day, when he expired in his arms, and he was helpless to do anything. It had become a taboo since then. He remembered the days right after Constance delivery, when she didn’t even want to see the baby. And they had encouraged her to do it, to try, for D’Artagnan.  
“He said to… to tell me that he would have loved… loved me forever. And the field… the field elm… Where is it?”  
She continued her confused murmuring, until Porthos took the initiative. He leaned on the bench with a knee, enclosing her shoulders with his arm. She seemed to be scared by his touch, but when she recognised him, they saw her swaying again between her fake world and reality.  
“Constance. The baby. Where is the baby?” he asked, weighing every word.  
Athos went back to the Garrison late that night, along with Treville.  
Porthos had hardly managed to make Constance drink a soporific that he wished he could swallow himself. It took longer than expected to take effect.  
He’d stayed there, listening to her wailing for hours.  
A lost soul, a howling ghost.  
In the end she’d fell asleep.  
He couldn’t get over it and walked back and forth in the room, frustrated and powerless in that situation: he couldn’t do nothing but waiting for news from his mates. Treville had been there for a few minutes, to check on Constance’s state, like if he couldn’t believe to the messenger’s words and hoped in a bad joke. Then he’d gone to the Palace too.  
When Athos and Treville stepped in, Porthos held his breath. For sure their faces were gloom, but he couldn’t read neither relief nor desperation.  
“He’s alive.” said Treville, in a serious tone.  
Porthos sighed and ran his hand on his face. Then he was about to go towards the bed where Constance was sleeping. Still he couldn’t explain his two mates’ faces, but soon it was clear to him why they weren’t smiling for the good news.  
He didn’t reach the threshold. He went back to then.  
“What will happen to her?” he asked, anxiously and hopeful in the same time.  
Athos went to pour a glass of wine for himself. Treville sighed, sat and rubbed his forehead, exhausted.  
“At the best of times, she will be banished from the Palace.” he replied, without looking the most shaken Musketeer. “At the worst...” but Athos’ glass’ thud on the wooden table, prevented him from finishing the sentence.  
“She left him on the riverside.” Treville revealed in the end, even though every word was hurting his heart, “But a fisherman saw him. It was a miracle.”  
Porthos blinked a few times, unbelieving. He’d seen Constance’s radical change, after that day, but he would have never imagined she was capable of something like that.  
“The only thing we know for sure, is that she will never be able to see Charles again.” Treville sentenced in the end, giving a painful glimpse to Porthos.  
Porthos stared at him for endless seconds, without receiving another look in change. He tried with Athos, but with no results: the Captain had his eyes lost into his bottle.  
A tense silence fell. It broke along with the glass in Athos’ hand. Without saying a word, he stood up and left the room, the Garrison.  
  
_Clemency._


	5. Memories

Stefano was screaming.

Damiano was screaming.

The children were screaming.

"BAGHEERA!" some of the little girls were shaking her strongly. They were unintentionally scratching her arms and pulling her hair. Beatrice came round and immediately understood that something bad had happened. Because Tommaso wasn't next to her.

He was the first one she looked for, and even though her sight was still blurred, she saw him.

His hands were red. Actually, his arms were red up to the elbows.

For just half a second Beatrice forgot what was happening and thought about the paints they played with when they were children: he always ended up covered in a thousand colours.

That wasn't red paint and she knew that.

Tommaso was on his knees, his head down and his arms opened, like if he was reciting the Pater Noster. He had a blonde head on his legs.

Samuele looked asleep, but a gunshot had torn his chest and he was laying in a bloodbath. She realised she must have blacked out just for a short time, because the red stain was still expanding on the floor.

"TOMMY!" her screeching voice joined the children's. She tried to stand up but she heavily fell on her knees, she crawled towards him and fell onto Samuele.

"No, no, no..." she panted, shaking. Her hands became red in no time, like Tommaso's, while she heard the robbers screaming at each other.

"I DIDN'T DO IT ON PURPOSE!"

"You shithead, you killed him, God, you killed him!"

"He was running towards me, it was a reflection!"

"You wanted to do it from the beginning!"

"NO!"

Damiano and Stefano were trying to calm the kids down. Just the youngest ones had moved from their places and had ran to the adults. The eldest were crying and shouting, but they were chained by an incredible diligence to the wall.  
  
  
_To obey the Scout Law._  
  
  
Beatrice was trying to close Samuele's wound with both hands. She didn't know that it was too late; Tommaso had done that already, he'd tried to hold him with all his strength, but his life had slipped away from him, too light.

When he'd understood that there was nothing he could have done for him, Tommaso had tried to make him reciting the Oath and a prayer, but Samuele couldn't do nothing but gurgle blood from his mouth. He'd stayed strong and spelled every word for him.  
  
  
_And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus_

 _Amen._  
  
  
Samuele didn't hear the end of the Ave Maria.

He'd died.

He'd died in his arms.

It had been only his fault.

He was responsible for his life and he'd died.

If he hadn't screamed seeing Bea passing out, the man wouldn't never came closer…

If he had managed to hide him in the closet with the other children…

His skinny body that only a few hours earlier had been an active and curious boy was still and cold on his legs. He saw the coloured plaster on his knee.  
  
  
_You will be fine._  
  
  
Did he say that to him? He was almost sure he did. He was almost sure that Samuele wasn't scared when they'd shot him. But how could he know that?

Beatrice was crying. She'd understood that that body was nothing but an empty shell.  
  
  
_A bunch of bones and pale flesh._  
  
  
And she threw herself on Tommaso's neck, sighing loudly. He had to stay strong, they couldn't lose anyone else. But he was exhausted, completely. It was like if Samuele's soul, flying away, had taken a part of him, the fighting part, the part that was making him make a plan to run away.

Beatrice looked terrified and wrecked, but she still hanged on a certain lucidity. She moved Samuele's body against the wall, so that Tommaso couldn't see it, even if the blood stain on the floor was still there.

The little girls were calling their friend loudly.

The men were still shouting at each other. They didn't know what to do.

They had to make a choice quickly, before the robbers could do it.

"Nobody will ever come looking for us! The van is hidden."

"And how long exactly do you want to stay here, with thirty hostages? Until some of them will manage to escape, maybe? We are in deep shit, we are in deep deep shit, now!"

"We had to leave when we could!"

"Let's do it now!"

"To live a life as fugitives? I've got a wife! He's got two children, for God's sake!"

"So what do you suggest, to kill them all?"

"..."

"Let's surrender."

"What?! NO!"

"YOU surrender, if you want to be a hero!"

Beatrice got closer to Tommy, she tried to shake him from his shoulders.

"Tommy..." she whispered, while he was still looking at his red arms. "Tommy, we've got to do something. Now!" she murmured, keeping an eye on the five, arguing between them.

She still had fresh tears on her cheeks, but she tried to remove from her head the thought that Samuele was there, dead, behind them.

He seemed to emerge slightly and looked at her, confused, as if she was speaking another language.

Beatrice told to some girls to sit against the wall, because they were still trying to get her attention: in that moment, the important thing was to revive Tommaso. Without him she couldn't do nothing, he was her rock, he'd always had been her rock.

"Tommy, can you hear me? Can you hear me?" she asked many times, his face in her hands, until, frustrated, she exclaimed: "it can't happen another time, all right?! I won't allow it!" her words were firm and determined.

And in Tommaso's mind something moved. That reminded him of the twelve year old Beatrice. No, actually, another Beatrice. The ancient Beatrice, the one he saw in the hallucination he'd never forgotten.

The girl at the market.

The wife waiting for him.

The woman in the cemetry.

The old lady in the hospital.

The one he'd loved so much, and the one he loved in that life, and the one he would have loved in the followings.

"What? What is that can't happen again?" he managed to ask her.

He had to know. He couldn't live with that secret between them. He'd become bigger than their whole relationship and it would have suffocate him: she'd seen something that he had the right to know.

"Bea." he said, with a pitiful expression on his face. "I need to know."

He saw her hesitating. She gave another look to the five harmed men, then she kissed him.

"You won't leave me alone again."

It sounded just like she was blaming him, and for a moment Tommaso dug in his memories trying to find the moment he made that mistake. But he couldn't, because he had to go too far back with his memory.

Beatrice tickled his t-shirt in that point in the middle of his chest, the one she used to rub always before sleeping. And suddenly, he remembered. He felt a pitch of pain where Beatrice's finger was touching him.

"I've never meant to do it, Const-" the sentence froze on his lips. That name… It had been laying in his subconsciousness for all that time, and he felt so weird to pronounce it. He knew that it was Bea, but that name sounded so right for her and she didn't seem surprised at all by him saying it.

"Constance..." he concluded, in a low voice and with a lump in his throat.

Beatrice looked back at him, softened. She wasn't her any more, she had something in her eyes that didn't belong to her. The way she opened her lips, the way she took his hands and the sound that came out from her mouth when she whispered:

"D'Artagnan..."  
  
  
  
  
  
Athos knocked on the door.

The country around the house extended for kilometres, but a dozen houses had changed the landscape in a harmonious way.

He would have liked to live like that, after all. But even if he was getting old to fight, he wouldn't have left the Musketeers. There were so many soldiers to train, so young and naive, they always reminded of him… That arrogant rookie.

The first time he'd arrived in the Garrison, with anger in his eyes and headstrong stubbornness…

That thought always made him wanting to laugh: he wouldn't feel any more that melancholy that used to haunt him in the morning.

Porthos… He lost his life in duty too, but with honour. That was the most important thing: they would have always been remembered as heroes. Even Aramis. Even if he'd been convicted as a traitor, in the Garrison his name was still symbol of nobility and courage.

Constance opened the door, surprised, like if she wasn't used to receive visits. She'd grown old, too, her beauty was faded, but she maintained that posture that Athos remembered, at the beginning of her relationship with D'Artagnan.

He smiled and she did the same. The wrinkles enhanced on her face, but they barely could hide her overflowing self-confidence.

The Constance he'd seen after D'Artagnan's death… That wasn't her.

Athos had always known, it hadn't been her but a dark demon with her body that had taken control of her actions. For this reason he had protected her with the King and Queen, persuading them into opting for the exile, rather than the sentence of death. He'd knelt in front of them, he'd lowered his head to hide the tears and he'd pleaded for clemency.

The woman hugged him and he kissed her head tenderly. They hadn't seen each other in years.

She let him in, they sat at the table. He held her hands.

"I spoke to the Queen."

Constance's smile slightly faded.

"He's fine. He's in Spain. He's healthy and he's studying to become a doctor." he revealed, hoping to see some kind of relief on her face. But what he sensed was a slight disappointment.

"In Spain, ah…?" she lowered her eyes. She tried to smile again. "I bet he'd become so handsome… Just like him." she added, with melancholy.

"Constance. I'm sorry, but maybe it's for the best. "Athos draw her attention, kindly squeezing her hands. "He's having a happy life, and you..." he hesitated. He couldn't say that she was living a happy life too, in that house, by herself, but she'd found a certain balance after she'd lost Charles. He left that sentence unfinished and instead he added: "I've got a good news for you."

Constance looked up again, curious.

She'd asked Athos to track Charles down a year ago. She felt ready now, after twenty years, to be the mother she'd never been. But deep inside she knew it was too late to fill that empty space that – she painfully had learnt – could have been filled only with a child, blood of her blood, and of her dearest D'Artagnan's.

She reminded of him with love, not any more with despair.

He'd made her life happy, even if for an unfairly short time, and she had to be grateful for that. The only thing she regretted was that shame that she felt when she bared her soul during her prayers, in front of God, in front of D'Artagnan: she'd tried to delete from her life the most beautiful gift a woman could ever get. And in the end, she'd managed to do it.

"You can come back to Paris, if you want." said Athos with a warm smile.

She slightly blushed.

Her crime had been covered by Queen Gisela's mercy, who had convinced Louis into not convict her nor humiliate her, but just drive her away from the Louvre and from her son. She told her fine words, she remembered. And to think that she'd even turned her nose when the Queen had called herself her friend; she truly was, and that proved how many times in her life Constance had been wrong.

Louis was now dead, and even most of the people she knew, actually. Nobody would have never taunted her. Only Athos had remained, her dear Musketeer, he'd stayed loyal to her up to that moment.

"We could meet more often." he said, reminding her how lonely he was feeling, too, even if the Garrison was full of good soldiers. "And you could visit his grave whenever you want."

Constance winced imperceptibly. She hadn't been many times on D'Artagnan's grave, because Paris was far away and she needed Athos' guard to go in without risking to be caught by the Red Guards.

She stood up and disappeared into the bedroom. Athos worried just for a moment, before she came back. In one hand she held the crucifix that D'Artagnan had given her before leaving, the same that had been Queen Anne's and the same that had been around Aramis' neck.

"I remember now, you know?" she smiled calmly. Athos looked back at her, questioning. "The field elm. I remember where it is." she explained, with a lightness that left him astonished.

Athos opened his mouth in surprise. Constance had been speaking about that tree for years, but he'd never heard anything about that from D'Artagnan.

It was their secret spot, the one where they would go when D'Artagnan would disappear for a whole afternoon. But since he was dead, Constance had kept taunting herself for having forgotten where it was. A couple of times he and Porthos had even helped her to look for it, hoping to give her some relief, but she would just wander around with her eyes lost and she would look without seeing, so she wasn't helping at all. And then, what did a field elm look like?

"It's always been there, not far from the graveyard." she revealed to her friend.

Athos stood up and pointed to the door.

"Let's go."


	6. The field elm

"YOU BASTARD!"

Another gunshot.

A body fell on the floor and everyone petrified.

Tommaso and Beatrice had to come back sharply to reality. One of the robbers had just shot his accomplice in the forehead, and now he was laying lifeless at the other four's feet. Just like Samuele.

The one holding the smoking gun turned it against the other three.

"Does someone else have any objection?"

Beatrice knew that the situation was turning against them. The man who'd just shot was the one that seemed to suggest to kill them all; his accomplice on the floor was the one who wanted to give up to the police. Their only chance to appeal to a shred of humanity.

And also their chance to take advantage of their argument to do something, had just faded away.

"Tommy..." Beatrice's trembling voice hissed in his ear.

Tommaso looked towards Stefano, who gazed back at him. Damiano joined them in that glancing game: Tommaso was coordinating them just moving his eyes.

He'd suggested Stefano to take the shortest one and to Damiano to take the one next to him. He would have taken the one who'd shot his accomplice.

The one who'd killed Samuele, on the other hand, seemed already hesitant enough and Tommaso was almost sure that he would have never shot anyone any more.

But it wasn't time yet. The tension was too high, and any sharp movement would have made them react, not to mention that one of them was already holding a gun.

They had to wait, but not for too long.

"Well!" the murdered sentenced. "Now let's just end this. Go and find some ropes." he ordered to the most scared of the three.

The situation had just turned in their advantage: they were in a tie now.

"Tommy..." Beatrice kept calling him

If he'd turned to look at her, his courage would have disappeared. He would have started to fear too much for her life and he would have stepped back, but he couldn't. They had to save as many people as they could: if they hadn't done anything, there would have been a massacre.

To tie them was just a precaution: once he would have start shooting, nobody couldn't run anywhere if they were tied. That guy wanted to leave no witness behind and he wanted to be sure that his accomplice wouldn't back out.

"What do you want to do, Tommy?" Bea insisted. "Please, stop… It's too dangerous, the children… Look at me!"

She forced him to look at her. Tommaso's determined glance immediately hesitated when he saw her. Actually, he was insecure. But he'd never been so brave as in that moment, it was almost as if he wasn't himself any more. Like if that soldier – D'Artagnan, Bea had called him – had taken the place of the young boyscout of good principle but with no initiative.

He knew what he was about to do, but when he looked at her, he started to feel insecure. Tommaso and his doubts, his insecurity were about to come back and he looked away from Beatrice. She remained astonished, staring at his nape.

It wasn't him.

D'Artagnan…

The man with the gun lowered it for an instant and Tommaso took a deep breath. Beatrice knew that it could have been the last time she heard his voice.

"NOW!" he shouted.

But another voice covered his scream.  


  
  
  
  


  
Constance dug a small hole at the foot of the big tree.

She kissed the crucifix and put it in a little chest, then she buried it.

Athos stared at the secular tree with some kind of respect. He rubbed his hand on the rough bark, looking up to the canopy, hearing the sound of the shovel that dug into the ground and let the earth fall in the hole.

When the noise stopped, he went back to Constance, who smiled at him tenderly and gratefully.

"I'll come back to Paris." she announced, glad.

Athos returned her smile and went back looking at the elm.

They both stayed there for a while, staring at the wind shaking the leaves and the birds going back to their nest, unaware of their silent presence.  


  
  
  
  


  
"POLICE!"

Everyone winced, the armed man tried to raise his gun, but he found himself with ten pointing towards him. The children screamed frightened, but then they all cried in relief.

"Down your weapons and get on the ground! Get on the ground!"

Tommaso was astonished. How did they find them?

Was it really over? That nightmare… Ended in that way? Something inside him was still burning with rage for not having revenged Samuele's death, but he knew that Beatrice was right.

It would have ended very badly if just two more seconds had passed before the policemen broke in.

Some of the officers came closer to them and to the children. One of them went to touch Samuele's wrist. Beatrice and Tommaso didn't looked.

They started asking questions to which Beatrice replied confused. Tommaso couldn't speak. The cooks said to the officers that three children were missing and they started asking more questions. While they were arresting the four man, putting the handcuffs on their wrists, they could hear the thuds of the doors being kicked to slam open on both floors: they were searching the house to check it was safe.

"Tommy, where are the children? Tommy!" it was only after Beatrice's insistence that the boy came round from the shock.

"Under the roof. They are fine." he finally replied. Beatrice looked at him shocked for a while, then she wrapped her arms around his neck until it hurt.

"You saved them, oh God… You saved them..." she moaned in a crackly voice.

Tommaso understood her surprise to the fact that he'd reacted so lucidly to be able to hide three kids when he'd realised that something was wrong.

"Samu..." he murmured. It would have been the greatest regret of his life.

Beatrice was crying but she went back to reason again pretty soon: they had to think about all of those children and, oh, God, Francesco was wounded. They ran towards him, but in that very moment the officers gave to the Red Cross' operators the permission to bring him away.

Tommaso and Beatrice realised that the policemen and the Red Cross' volunteers were already assisting the children, even if some of them still hanged to their clothes, terrified.

"… long-south thieves. They did a lot of robbery, and today a big shot at the Bank." one of the officers was saying to Stefano. "Mr. Felice Moretti had been blackmailed for years, he let them use this place as a shelter after every job, so that they could disappear for a while, leaving no suspects. We wouldn't never found them if it wasn't for those two tourists."

Beatrice opened her ears, while Tommaso still hadn't realised. She went to the officer with an inquiring air.

"Which tourists?" she asked, joining the conversation. She had a feeling. She turned to Tommaso to draw his attention and he came closer, grabbing her hand.

"Two Spanish. We have no idea of what they were doing here, in the middle of nowhere, but they say they heard some shots… You'd like to thank them, I guess. We secured them into a police car outside. Just wait here." and he went away.

Tommaso and Beatrice looked at each other, puzzled.

"What is it?" he asked, clearly confused for a different reason of the girl's.

"You don't remember, then?" she asked. And smiled. That strange smile he'd seen on her face in the moment she'd said that name – D'Artagnan – that still sounded so weird and familiar at the same time.

The policeman came back, with two people.

She had fair skin and eyes, blond hair and she was slightly shaken. He had his hand on her shoulder, just as worried. He had long wavy hair and unshaven face.

As soon as Tommaso saw them, everything was clearer. They went to the two strangers and stared at each other, looking up and down.

Then Beatrice smiled, moved, and threw her arms around the girl's neck, hugging her like a friend she hadn't seen for a long time. A long, long time.

In their hug, a familiar item stung her chest. She lowered her eyes and saw a crucifix – the crucifix.

The guy smiled friendly to Tommaso, then he stretched his hand out, for him to shake it. When he did it, he put the other hand on his shoulder, in a brotherly gesture that awakened in Tommaso a hundred memories.

In a slightly insecure Italian, he introduced himself.

"My name is Manuel. She's Iris. We found you, in the end."  
  
  
  
  
  
Hi guys! This is the author :)

I hope you enjoyed this part of the saga, but don't move! There's another whole new story coming just for you. I recommend to read "Crossed lives" before the next one, it'll be much clearer for you, but even if you don't, I hope you could enjoy it the same (spoiler alert: it's about Athos! And many many mysteries will be finally solved).

So, stay tuned and review please, I'd really appreciate that, I know I have to improve a lot (especially my English has to...), but I'm trying my best and it's always nice when I get some feedbacks!

See you soon!


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